Dr Amier Saidula is a Research Associate at the IIS. He completed his graduate studies at Northwest University of Political Science and Law in Xi’an China, with a degree in Chinese Laws. He also holds a diploma in Chinese Culture and Chinese Language from the Northwest University of Nationalities in Lanzhou China. He completed the Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities (GPISH) at the IIS. He also holds a Master of Laws (LLM) from SOAS University of London, and a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh.
Before joining the IIS, Dr Saidula was a state prosecutor in charge of international cases in the High Procuratorate of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. His academic research interests include the history, culture and traditions of Muslims in China in general, and the Ismaili community in particular.
His long-time aim is to promote knowledge about Islam in China in general with a focus on the IsmailisAdherents of a branch of Shi’i Islam that considers Ismail, the eldest son of the Shi’i Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 765), as his successor. in Xinjiang region. The concrete plan for achieving this objective includes working towards building a comprehensive database on these topics while publishing his findings as academic articles and monographs in the future. He is working on a monograph at the moment and will publish his PhD thesis as a second monograph afterwards.
